philadelphia, meet chevalier

[peterxy]

The next few days proceed as normal.

Until they don't: the Philadelphia and Brockton Bay teams have been talking, and they're thinking of trading Chevalier with a couple of Wards. Philadelphia has quite a selection of them, including a couple who triggered during the Behemoth attack on Pittsburgh, while Brockton Bay has the opposite problem.

The current Philadelphia Ward lineup is:

• Laser Tag, a Tinker who specializes in weapons that have cumulative effect. He has a laser gun that causes various conditions on its targets each time they're hit, usually taking them out on the third or fourth hit.
• Clasp, a Breaker-Blaster-Striker who can cause objects to be almost weightless and much more resistant to damage for as long as he's holding them. He can only do that to one object at a time, and the weightlessness of the objects he holds means he can both throw them very far or use them to hit things. He can also apply this property to his costume, rendering him much more resistant.
• Mirage, a Mover-Stranger who can toggle invisibility for a very short time when no one's looking and can teleport within her line-of-sight while in that state.
• Glimmer, a Brute-Mover who can create a forcefield around her own body that makes her glimmer and become very resistant and slippery.
• Transfer, tentatively rated as a Blaster-Striker who can draw heat from a source and then dump it somewhere else, or conversely dump extra heat somewhere that he'll later have to replenish.
• Blockage, a forcefield Tinker whose forcefields can absorb any impact but disappear upon doing so.
• Lightbulb, a flying-artillery type of Mover-Blaster that can shoot balls of kinetically charged light whose path he can influence as it flies through the air.
• Iter, a Thinker precog who can see where objects are slated to be up to ten seconds in the future, similar to the way Rewind sees the past.
• Silica, a Master who can animate statues made of sand. There's no limit to how many statues she can animate, but there is a limit to the volume of sand she can control at a given time.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"They're not like a real tinker though?"

[peterxy]

"No, but that's why they're always together, she's actually one of those things Glam makes."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh. But then why is Transit pretending to be her dad?"

[peterxy]

Shrug. "Maybe to make it really hard to guess the truth."

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe everybody is a Glam thing except for me. Even you."

[peterxy]

"No way, you're totally a Glam thing."

[alicornucopia]

"Nuh-uh, I came from Philadelphia, they couldn't have been making me be in Philadelphia."

[peterxy]

"You think you came from Philadelphia, but what if your memories are lying to you, huh? Huh?"

[alicornucopia]

Giggle. "I have a family too though!"

[peterxy]

"All Glam's!"

[alicornucopia]

"Why would they even bother making my family instead of having me think I was an orphan?"

[peterxy]

"They can't be having everyone be an orphan, or it'd get suspicious."

[alicornucopia]

"Does Lorica have a mom or is it just Transit?"

[peterxy]

"Dunno. She never talks about her if she does." Pause. "Not that she really talks about Transit either but."

[alicornucopia]

"Hm."

[peterxy]

"Well-" Pause. "Was that a scream?"

[alicornucopia]

"I - maybe?" Silica poises her hand over the cap to the jug of sand on her back.

[peterxy]

Rewind taps her comm to say, "I think I heard a scream near Dawson and Laurel, we're gonna investigate."

"Acknowledged," Glam's voice says over the comm.

[alicornucopia]

Silica makes a few golems and heads screamward.

[peterxy]

Screamward is:

A building. Kaiser's standing in front of it, covered in metal, his hands clasped behind his back, which is turned to them. The building's windows and doors are all blocked by metal spikes, and there's the grey mist suggestive of Fog escaping from every opening on the building.

Rewind quickly retreats around a corner. "Kaiser and Fog attacking a building, Night's probably inside. They've been there less than three minutes."

[msglam]

"Copy that. Do not engage, getting reinforcements ASAP."

Sadde messages everyone from the console, and gets Echo to replace her there.

[alicornucopia]

So Silica hangs back with Rewind. "How do you know it's been less than three minutes," she whispers.

[peterxy]

"I have a Thinker power, I can see stuff's past ten minutes."

[alicornucopia]

"Ooh."

Wait wait.

[mxglam]

They don't have to wait much - Rewind and Silica were close enough to the PHQ that: 1. the other heroes arrive pretty quickly and 2. they suspect this may be a trap. They arrive en masse: Glam (plus three copies), Lorica, Drupe, Dauntless, Miss Militia, Velocity, and Glimmer. Glam provides everyone with imaginary air filters because of Fog, and the heroes who had exposed skin also covered it for the same reason.

They get on a roof a couple of blocks away.